Chapter 1

Okay. Let me explain something.

This is my second try with this story.

I had originally posted two chapters of this story under the same title. But, it wasn't turning out good. Rather than continuing that story and ending up with another Spider-Man: New World 2 on my hands (if you've read my stories before, you know what I'm talking about). Mostly because Anya is my favorite female character, and she deserves an amazing story.

And I'm taking Anya back to her roots. Lately in the comics, Anya has kinda turned into a female Spider-Man. She's even called Spider-Girl now, because why not take away all her originality and make her just another character with spider in her name? So I'm taking her back to her kick-ass, hacking, street-smart, starts a fight with a guy twice her size because he was messing with her best friend, girl. And hopefully it turns out great this time. Because that's what her character deserves.

By the way, at the beginning of the story, just know that they're actually talking in Spanish.

So without further ado and all that...


Gilberto Corazón awoke with a start, a cold sweat pouring down his face.

He was sitting in the dark, alone in his empty bed.

"Sofia? he called out to his wife to no answer.

Something was wrong. Sofia rarely got up from bed, and on the few times she did, she happened to make a lot of noise.

Gilberto slowly got from under the covers. Anya. She was probably checking on their five year old daughter Anya. Yeah, that's it. Anya had a history of bad dreams, Sofia probably went to comfort her.

Quietly as he possibly could, he walked out of his bedroom and into the hallway. He then walked into Anya's room, expecting to see his beautiful wife reading their daughter a bedtime story, like she always did when Anya had a bad dream.

But all he saw was Anya. Sleeping soundly.

Sofia?

Less worried about being quiet, Gilberto speed walked down the stairs into the living room. The TV was on, playing some cartoon about three spies that just happened to be teenage girls. Completely Spies or something like that.

So that was it. Sofia came down to watch television. Gilberto smiled to himself. He was being foolish for worrying. He walked up to the couch, expecting to see light brown hair sticking out over it, Gilberto was surprised to see that nobody was there.

"Sofia?!" Gilberto called out, not caring if he woke Anya or not anymore. "Sofia, are you here sweetie?!"

Gilberto ran from the living room in a frenzy. He looked in the backyard. She wasn't there. He looked in the bathroom. She wasn't there. It wasn't long until he had checked every room in the house.

Except the kitchen.

He eased into the kitchen softly.

"Sofia?" Gilberto asked as he entered the room. "Sweetheart, are you...oh god..."

Laying on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood, was Sofia. By her body was a dead black bird.

A raven.

"SOFIA!" Gilberto called out, before falling to the ground, cuddling his wife's body. "Pl...please don't...don't leave me...!"

"Papá?" Gilberto heard a voice call out.

Oh no. Oh God, please no.

Five year old Anya walked out into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

"You woke me up," she said. "Where's Ma...MAMÁ!"

"Anya, stay back!" Gilberto yelled to his daughter, who was attempting to run to her mother. "You shouldn't see this!"

Sniff. Sniff.

What was that smell?

Oh no...

Fire.

"Anya?" Gilberto said as peacefully as he could. "Anya, we have to get out of the house."

But Anya wasn't listening. She was too busy attending to her mother.

"Mamá?" little Anya whispered. "Mamá, wake up...,"

"Anya!" Gilberto yelled as he grabbed Anya's hand. "We have to get out! Now!"

"Mamá!" Anya called as she was pulled away from her mother's body. With her other hand, she reached out and pulled off her mother's locket off her body.

Gilberto ran outside, Anya in his arms. Turning around, he saw that his house was ablaze in the upper levels, and was now spreading to the lower levels. Whoever had killed Sofia had also lit their house on fire. They had tried to kill them too.

They had to run. Hey had to get as far away from here as possible.

They had to leave Mexico.

[And remember, that whole section was in Spanish.]


Anya Sofia Corazón woke up in her bed in Brooklyn, New York.

It had been ten years since that night, and Anya was now 15, and a freshman in high school.

She got out of bed and looked in the mirror.

Damn.

She was having a bad hair day. Her light brown hair, which she got from her mother, God rest her soul, was spiked up and all over the place. It didn't even really look like hair, more like a brown mop on her head.

Lynn's gonna have a field day with this.

Anya put her hair into a ponytail, and left it alone. She didn't really care about her appearance. Well, she cared, but not as much as most people. All she needed was some pants and a shirt, and she was perfectly fine. Her father had always told her that it was the heart that mattered, not the skin. Of course, maybe he just said that because they didn't have the money to get designer clothes.

Well screw it, Anya thought. I never cared what other people thought anyway.

She then proceeded to pull on some jeans and a t-shirt, along with a pink hoodie with a face on the front of it. She then walked to her dresser and pulled out a small necklace with a gold piece at the end of it. The gold had a small red ruby in the center. She had no idea if it was real or not, but that really didn't matter. It was her mother's.

Anya only remembered bits and pieces of her mother. A few conversations, a few ice cream sundaes...but she would never forget her dead body, sprawled out on the kitchen floor. She had looked kind of elegant actually, her night gown draped around her, her caramel hair laid out like a halo around her head. Of course, then a flaming house fell on top of her.

Anya walked down the stairs, her backpack on her back.

"Jonah don't do this to me," she heard her father say.

"Gil, you know I have to," the voice of Editor of the Daily Bugle came out. Her father had a habit of talking on speaker phone. "You haven't turned in turned in a single report that we could follow."

"But Jonah," her father pleaded. "I'm so close on this Raven story. I'm so close."

"You've been so close for years Gil," she heard Jonah sigh. "I know why you're after this Raven story, and I respect it. More so than most. And I hope you'll respect me enough to quit chasing ghosts. You have a job to do, Gil. Thank about Anya..."

"I am thinking about Anya!" Gilberto yelled out. "Everything I have ever done, has been for her! Raven is out there, Jonah. And they're after us. If I don't take them down, Anya might not ever be safe..."

"You can't protect her forever, Gil."

"Yeah?" Gilberto said. "Well I can damn well try. Bye Jonah."

She heard a click, meaning he had hung up. Anya marched in place for a few seconds, acting as if she was just now coming down the stairs, and wasn't listening to his conversation. She walked in the kitchen, a forced smile on her face.

"Hey Papá," she said.

"Hey Araña," Gilberto said, kissing her on the cheek.

Araña was Spanish for spider. The nickname came to be after Anya was attacked by a nest of spiders at the zoo. She had suffered bite marks all over her body. It kind of annoyed her when her father started calling her that, but she had gotten so used to it, she didn't really care anymore.

Gilberto was a tall guy. He had gained some weight in the past ten years, and had grown a thick mustache. Anya sometimes joked and said he looked like Mexican Hitler.

"Hey, uh, you have a field trip today right?" Gilberto asked, making pancakes, Anya's favorite.

"Oh yeah, to some college or something," Anya said.

"Sounds interesting."

"To who?" Anya said, sighing. "I'm fifteen. If I wanted to go to college I'd be one of those freaky genius kids."

"Hey now, I was one of those freaky genius kids."

"No you weren't, Papá."

"You could've at least let me pretend," Gilberto said with a smile.

"Well that's me," Anya said. "Anya Corazon: Imagination Destroyer. Kneel before my wrath!"

"Oh no, I can feel my imagination being draaaaaaiined," Gilberto feigned horror.

Muahahahahaha!" Anya evilly cackled.

Ding!

"And that's the doorbell," Gilberto said.

"That's probably Lynn," Anya said as she got up and walked to the door and opened it. Standing there, was her best friend Lynn Moon. A Chinese girl (born and raised in Brooklyn though) with thin pink glasses and was a few inches taller than Anya.

"We're you right?" Gilberto called.

"I was right," Anya answered back before turning to her friend. "Hey Lynn."

"'Hey Lynn?'" Lynn asked, surprised. "We're about to go on the most exciting field trip we've ever taken, and possibly change our lives, and all you can say is 'Hey Lynn'?"

"Anya said it was lame," Gilberto said.

"I did not!"

"You implied it."

"And I thought I knew you," Lynn said. "Aren't you excited?"

"Lynn, you said all this before when we went to the Baxter Building," Anya said. "You went on and on about how our lives would change forever, and how we'd probably grow brain cells from how much we'll learn, and yet here we, exactly them same."

"Not exactly the same," Lynn said. "You hit puberty since then."

"Lynn!"

"You what?" Gilberto asked, astounded. "Oh, my little Araña's growing up!"

"She'll be a fine young woman soon enough," Lynn teased.

"Don't encourage him!" Anya yelled, trying not to lose control of the situation. "We're going, Papá!"

"You don't want pancakes?"

"I'll eat them when I get back."

And with that, Anya closed the door, dragging Lynn behind her.


"Lynn, what the hell?" Anya asked, incredulous. "Why would you say something like that."

"What?" Lynn asked. "It's not my fault you're too embarrassed to tell your dad you've been having cra..."

"Finish that word and I swear to God, I will hit you."

"Jeez sorry."

Anya crossed her arms as they continued walking to the bus stop.

"Hey guys!" a voice called out. "Wait up!"

Anya and Lynn turned to see Alex Cooper running to them. Alex was a fifteen year old with a mess of blond hair on his head, and for some reason almost always wore football jerseys wherever he went, even though he insisted that he didn't like football.

"Hey Alex," Anya and Lynn said in unison.

"Jeez were you guys gonna leave me?"

"Maybe if you actually set your alarm and stopped trusting your 'mental clock' you'd be out here faster," Anya said.

"Man, what crawled up your skinny jeans?" Alex asked.

"It's that time of the month," Lynn whispered.

"No it isn't!" Anya yelled.

"Oh jeez my bad," Alex said. "I swear I didn't mean anything by..."

"I need new friends," Anya said as she stormed off to the bus stop.

"Man, it must be really bad," Alex whispered.

"I know, right?" Lynn whispered back.

"I can still hear you!"


"Listen up class," the teacher called out to the bus full of students. "Today we will be visiting Empire State University...and blah blah blah, and blah blah blah, also blah blah..."

Anya would literally rather be anywhere else. Seriously. She hated field trips. Something always happened that made her stick out, the absolute last thing she ever wanted to do. And God forbid they go anywhere that involved Mexican heritage. They had flown to Texas on a field trip once (incredibly hot place) to visit the Alamo, and the other students kept asking her questions like she was a Mexican encyclopedia just because she was born there.

On the bright side, this college they were going to had nothing to do with Mexico. Apparently they were going to Dr. Curtis Connors' lab, where apparently there were a lot of different inventions which Lynn described as "neat." Hopefully nothing would happen.

Wishful thinking, of course.


"This is so coooool," Lynn exclaimed as they walked around Empire State University's science division. They were having some kind of expo, with a lot of different inventions all over the place. Lynn was Anya's "buddy" during this field trip, meaning they had to stick together at all times. It also meant Anya had to bare witness to Lynn's constant fangirling, but there were worse fates. As long as he friend was happy, she was happy.

"Yeah, if you're into this sorta thing," Anya said, trying to find something that she could find interesting. Like Matt Damon. She could really use some Matt Damon right about now.

"How could you not be?" Lynn asked before pointing. "Ooh! Dr. Octavio's is using his arms!"

"Revolutionary," Anya said rolling her eyes. "Uh, sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude..."

"No, I get it," Lynn smiled, shaking her head.. "You're just not into this sorta thing."

"Exactly, like, you don't like soap operas."

"Neither do you."

"I do actually," Anya said. "A few of them. Although when you speak Spanish, they're kinda just TV shows."

"Really dramatic TV shows."

"Exactly."

"Hey, watch where you're going!" Sofia Palmer, a blond girl from their grade, said as she bumped into Lynn.

"Oh, um, sorry," Lynn stammered out.

"You don't have to apologize Lynn," Anya said before turning to Sofia. "You bumped into her."

"You got any proof of that, chica?" Sofia asked, in a mocking tone. "Oh, I like that necklace where'd you get it?"

"None of your damn business," Anya replied.

"Anya, let's just..." Lynn started.

"Now that was just rude," Sofia said before snatching the necklace, along with the pennant from Anya's neck and dangling in front of her. "So, what're you gonna do now chi..."

Wham!

Sofia flew to the ground after Anya punched her in the nose.

"You...I think you broke my nose!" Sofia exclaimed as she wiped blood from her face.

"I'll do worse than that if you don't give me back my damn necklace," Anya threatened.

"Make me bitch," Sofia said.

And again, Anya was on top of her, delivering a volley of punches to Sofia's face. The blond flung her arms around uselessly, her punches not really connecting.

"Ms. Corazon!" the principal exclaimed, trying to get Anya off of her.

"Anya!" Lynn called to her friend.

Anya turned to look at Lynn, then let the principal pull her away.

"What is going on here?!" Principal Head demanded.

"She stole my necklace!" Anya accused.

"Sofia, is this true?" Head asked.

"This is my necklace!" Sofia lied. "She just started attacking me out of nowhere!"

"That's not true!" Lynn said, defending her friend. "Anya got that from her mom!"

"Give me the necklace," Principal Head said, taking the necklace from Sofia. He held the pennant out to Anya, where Sofia was engraved on the back.

"Sofia was my mom's name," Anya exclaimed. "I swear. Call my papá and ask him."

"'Papá?'" Sofia asked. "She can't even speak English right. I bet she's, like, one of those Mexican immigrants you see on the news."

"You racist perra," Anya said through grit teeth.

"What did you just call me?!" Sofia asked. "Tell me what you said!"

"Google it," Anya said. "I'm sure a picture of you will show up."

"Enough!" Principal Head exclaimed. "I'll hold on to the necklace. We'll settle this later. Please try not to fight until the field trip is over."

"Yes sir," Anya and Sofia said in unison.

Anya walked away, Lynn following.

"Well bright side," Lynn said. "At least Sofia doesn't have it."

"Can we not talk about that?" Anya asked. "Let's just...I don't know, let's go look at some science stuff."

"Like what?"

"You lead the way."

"Well there is this spider exhibit I wanted to check out."

"Ew."

"It's cool I swear," Lynn said as she pulled Anya along. "Come on."

Anya followed Lynn towards a case full of weird looking spiders. God, she hated spiders.

"Would you like to hold one?" she heard a man say.

She turned and saw an older man with graying hair talking to two teenagers, a boy and a girl. The boy had brown hair, and the girl was blond.

"No way," the blond girl said. "Bugs freak me out."

"Really?" the brunette boy said with so much enthusiasm it was scary. "I can hold one?"

This dude was such a geek. He really wanted to touch one of these things? He'd be perfect for Lynn. Hell, they deserved each other.

"Sure," the older man responded as he got a spider out of the tank.

Anya was just about ready to leave and go check out the Dr. Octavius or whatever, when she noticed a shimmer. It was weird. It was, like, a shake in the air inside the tank. She put her hands on the tank and looked in.

"Uh, Peter, how does he know your name?"

BOOM.